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Its Fathers’ day inthe UK tomorrow :o) I’m really looking forward to seeing my parents and treating them to a nice meal out. And I’ve got all my ingredients ready to make a yummy vegan chocolate cake to have with a cuppa beforehand.

The only downside is that I’ve spent all of today cleaning the house and trying to make it presentable! Nevertheless, I had promised myself that I would write up a post tonight. So despite my tired eyes and achy-sore fingers, here is my recipe for a tomato and mascarpone, gnocchi bake.

Arrange the tomatoes and onion on a baking tray and drizzle with a teaspoon of olive oil. Add a few grinds of black pepper before roasting for 20mins.

In the meantime, fry the garlic in 1 teaspoon of olive oil until it starts to brown (5 mins). Add the tinned tomatoes, stock, salt and pepper and simmer until the liquid has reduced by 2/3rds (around 30 minutes). Take off the heat and use an emersion blender to whizz in the nutritional yeast and tofu. Blend until smooth then heat until the sauce is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon.

Fry the gnocchi in 1 tsp of olive oil until browned (5-10 mins). This really adds depth to the flavour of the dish.

Put the gnocchi, cherry tomatoes and onion into an oven-proof dish along with the spinach.

I have never liked marrow. But then again, before I went vegan I also didn’t like courgette, aubergine, cauliflower or mushy peas! So when we saw one in the shops the other day, my husband suggested that I give it another try.

The last time I had eaten marrow, my mum had stuffed it with sausage meat – bleurgh! However for mine, I had recently come across this recipe for lentil and brown rice chili and I really wanted to give it a go, so I decided to make them “Mexican” style.

I’ve also discovered a fantastic recipe for a smoked coconut gouda. This “cheese” is made from a can of coconut milk – not that you can tell! It’s refreshingly easy to make, meltable, grateable and super tasty. So of course I had to top my Mexican marrows with a handful.

I can safely say that I like marrow now! Unfortunately hubby only liked the chilli and cheese… argh! It’s so hard getting vegetables into him, even when it was his idea…

Mexican Marrows (makes 2 portions)Ingredients:

1 x medium sized marrow.

Filling:
This lentil and brown rice chili recipe (I used half the quantity that the recipe makes. NOTE: the recipe lists 2 x tablespoons of chili powder… I thought this sounded a lot so only used 2 x teaspoons, and it was still on the spicy side!)

Sexy carrot cake, I think it was from Pudology (http://www.pudology.com/) … but I’d had a bit too much beer by this point!

Anyhow, after all this vegan festivalling, I was feeling inspired. I always thought my “Eazy Cheeze” sauce would make a great hard cheese… and it does! I simply added a bit of kappa carrageenan to make a grateable mild cheddar.

Ingredients:

1 x large carrot (peeled)

2 x small potatoes (peeled)

¾ x cup nutritional yeast

½ x cup olive oil (don’t use virgin!)

½ x teaspoon mustard (or horseradish or wasabi)

½ x tsp black pepper

½ x cup soya milk

¼ x tsp garlic powder

½ x tbsp fresh lemon juice

½ x tsp white miso paste

5 x tsp kappa carrageenan

Method:

Line some ramekin dishes with cling-film. Put to one side.

Peel and roughly chop the carrot and potatoes. Boil in water until soft.

This recipe mentioned that the resulting cheese wasn’t creamy, so I added vegan cream to mine to solve this. The author also mentioned that if made plain, this cheese wasn’t too tasty, so I made sure to pack mine with delicious smoky flavours.

My cheese came out a little softer than expected (texture-wise think of a stiffer Vegusto No-moo melty –http://vegusto.co.uk/no-moo-cheese/6-no-moo-melty-7640144054052.html), but this was O.K. as it meant that I was able to spread it onto my toast or an oat-cake (perhaps more agar powder and less vegan cream / oil would produce a harder cheese?).

You will need a suitable mould to set the cheese in. My other half has a big glass bowl which is separated into quarters in order to put party nibbles in it. These compartments just so happened to be perfect for setting cheese in! A couple of ramekins would also work well.

Add the soya milk to a pan, whisk in the agar and bring to a simmer. When the agar has dissolved, pour into the food processor (whilst whizzing) a tablespoon at a time. Don’t allow the agar-milk to cool or else it will set.

Add the oil, lemon juice, vinegar and cream and whiz until smooth.

Quickly pour into a greased mould, cover and refrigerate overnight. You will probably need to run a knife around the edges in order to remove the cheese from the mould.

Perfect for cheese on toast, on crackers, or melted into soya milk to make a scrummy “cheese sauce”.